Has anyone installed the General Guitar Gadgets SBB (alembic blaster type circuit) onboard in a guitar? the wiring diagram on the site shows a mono output jack, which i believe would cause the battery to drain constantly. i was wondering if anyone has any ideas or knows if this is true?

the link below will download a .pdf file of the diagram i am talking about. there is a 2nd diagram below showing a switch to turn the circuit on and off, but i really dont need an extra switch on my guitar for something that can be done without one. thanks

Just do like the Garcia guitar schematics show: get a stereo jack, main out goes to the tip, ground to the jacket like normal, run the ground lead from the battery to the middle ring... when you put a mono plug in it, it will connect the battery lead to ground and you are live, when unplugged it disconnects the battery...

milobender wrote:Just do like the Garcia guitar schematics show: get a stereo jack, main out goes to the tip, ground to the jacket like normal, run the ground lead from the battery to the middle ring... when you put a mono plug in it, it will connect the battery lead to ground and you are live, when unplugged it disconnects the battery...

If it shows a mono jack connected the only way you would drain it just like a standard pedal if the cord is plugged in and the other end of the cord is plugged in the any thing plugged into a power outlet. There would be the odd exception if your body is grounded eg.barefoot on concrete or standing in the bath tub and you were touching either strings,metal knobs, and bridge you would ground out the guitar that way. Shoes ,socks and even barefoot on wood floor would not even ground your body. There's not enough current to pass through your body to ground unless above mentioned circumstances.

I have done exactly this, and actually it was my desire to put the GGG blaster into my guitar rather than a stomp that prompted the creation .pdf file by GGG that you posted at the beginning of the thread.

After a lot of messsing around with the stereo jack trick, it didnt sound right, my bad Im sure....I went REAL SIMPLE....

I simply used 2 DPDT mini switches.

One turns the power from the battery on and off, and the other puts the blaster in or out of circuit. So if you flip the switch to put the blaster in circuit without the battery switch flipped, no soup for you!!! I only use a single tone pot so the blaster gain pot went where the second tone pot is, and the mini switches below that. The blaster pcb is in the cavity under the pots and the battery is in the tremolo compartment

.......................................................have you heard the one about the yellow dog?

Do you know how to eliminate the pots completely and just solder a resitor in it's place? I'm lookin to set it up for a friend to maintain a steady 6db's like jer's that it. What value res. would creat this? I honestly don't know why they would throw a gain in it. They brag about the distortion when you crank it up. The whole purpose of these devices is to maintain a solid no signal tonal loss through extreme cable runs. If I want distortion I'd use my screammer or my vintage modified ds-1. Thanks.

hawk900 wrote:D. The whole purpose of these devices is to maintain a solid no signal tonal loss through extreme cable runs. If I want distortion I'd use my screammer or my vintage modified ds-1. Thanks.

No, that is the purpose of buffer's, unity gain or otherwise. While the blaster can serve this purpose, I see the Blaster first and foremost as a boost that allows you to hit the front of your amp (or pedals) with more signal. Not unlike many other clean boosts, like an MXR Microamp and stuff of that ilk.

If your only desire is to maintain tone through long cable runs, you would be much better off with a TPC-1

.......................................................have you heard the one about the yellow dog?

Well I was first designed by Cutler. per idea of Jer. Yes more power but it was designed so you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a direct dimarzio tone and maintain that same natural tone with a 6 foot cable and no loss=tone even with a 50 of travel through many junctions. It uses a JFET.The gain addition is strickly to add distortion. The original was solid resistor non adjustable and set a 6db boost. It is mean to keep a set level through the fx loop back into the guitar and to the guitar volume then you can ram an over drive or volume pedal in before tone stack. eg if you run this to your pedals with this gain knob variable level it will change the tone, wah, envelope and every other volume sensitive effect will be screwed. Do you own an enveleope filter? It doesn't sound like you do or you would understand that this gain knob is a new addition and will screw all your fx. It's strictly over kill. I've been speaking with the guys at GGG and they said they are in the middle or writing a schem with the original design so you can eliminate this overdrive pot fx messer upper on the op amp. You just need to add 2 res. to r2 and r3. If you want to do the math just divide the output voltage by the input voltage all decimal points as well to give you your gain ratio. Your can then convert the gain ratio to it's equivalent in db's. As you put is there is no point installing this inside a guitar. You could stomp box it after all your fx and guitar volume and jack the gain to 12 oclock to add some edge to your sound but defeats the entire purpose. In mondern day terms it's noiseless with .0005% distortion and acts like a satellite signal booster if you have install your dish way at the back fence and keeps the line clean. The only thing pushes it over the edge and is a flaw is this gain boost pot unless you measure the db's and lock the knob it's perfect spot before any type of distortion is in the line. Yes the TPC-1 is the cats down under the stars ass and is the best I've ever heard which is a buffer but not unity gain and enhances the dp104 true sound as if it were plugged directly into headphones from your guitar. Except with the original strato and the even sweeter waldo's product you can blaze at 300 watts and it will be as clear as the headphone senario. Who cares about gain? It's bandwidth is the factor.

Right, I heard you say that the first time, which is why I said the TPC-1 is a better device for you for what you declared your intent to be. You said you didnt want gain, or distortion. The ALembic Blaster and GGG Blaster especially, are used as boosts in most applications. While they definitely can be used as a buffer as well, if you are looking for bandwidth and no gain, why bother with the blaster when there are unity gain devices that will do that job.

.......................................................have you heard the one about the yellow dog?

the blaster cannot be set to unity unless you precisely pick the transistor to do so. i have modded the blaster and do have my own layout that allows me to remove the gain, and still use the line driving capabilites of the the circuit. i simply use a switch to toggle the 50k trim pot and 6.8uF cap in and out of the circuit. this is where the gain is achieved, so removing these 2 components leaves the circuit at whatever gain/Db's the transistor has, and with a flick of the switch i can add in whatever gain i have set with the 50k pot and 6.8uF cap on the otherside of the switch.

to set the blaster to a fixed output, first dial in the gain wanted/needed, next notice in the schem and layout that the Variable resistor(ie pot) has 2 lugs that are tied together coming from the capacitor, and the 3rd goes to the 12k. you need to remove the pot and read the resistance of these 2 locations of the pot(the middle lug and the the 12k side lug). whatever the value is is the value resistor needed to fix the gain. solder that resistor in the 2 outer lugs where the pot was removed from. again, the middle lug is tied to one of those outside lugs so is not needed with the fixed resistor.

also this is the best info on the original blaster, it also shows you how to use the stereo jack for on/off switching.

If you solder a bridge wire from R2 to R3 with no gain knob you get what is mentioned above by waldo about the transitor output. Roughly 6db's as per GGG tech email. In jer's original blaster it had a pre settable(flathead screw driver) no knob pot and was pre set from the transistor output to no more thain 10 db gain. This link has some info but not all correct:http://obie1.homesite.net/deadcd/garcia_guitars.htm

scroll down about 3/4 when you see Tiger title in the middle and they mention a unity gain buffer and saying a site that sells them which I believe is incorrect and more like a sales pitch. Waldo can confirm.

milobender wrote:Hello Waldo,What difference will using a 10uf cap instead of the 6.8uf make? The 10s are easier to find "o)

Brian

that capacitor value sets the frequency where the gain begins. 10uf is around 40hz whereas 6.8uf is somewhere inbetween 30 and 20 hz. so with 10uf the gain starts at 40hz and on through the rest of the entire signal. if you made that same capacitor real small, you could turn the blaster into a treble booster.

but back to your question, not much of a difference. the 6.8uf may tighten up the bass a tad, but the 10uf has all the 6.8uf has.

peace,waldo

Disclaimer: I only make, modify or build things for those that seek what i may be able to provide.